Marty’s photo of the day #4742: This is a tiny section of the Duomo di Firenze in Florence. When in Italy, I spent quite a bit of time photographing and admiring the beautiful and spectacular architecture of Catholic Churches. At the same time, I couldn’t help but think about the more than 1 million child […]
During my April college speaking tour, I read “The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein. It’s a novel about a golden retriever, Enzo, and his race-car-driving human. Enzo reminded me of Max, a golden retriever Deb and I had as our first dog after we got married. Yes, all dog books and […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4740: You can only see one in this photo, but at the time, I was watching six lions (all female) hunting Cape buffalo. Photographed while canoeing the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe.
Marty’s photo of the day #4739: You can’t tell, because of the flash, but I photographed this tiny frog on a dark and rainy night, somewhere deep in the rainforest of Borneo.
Marty’s photo of the day #4738: Meerkats! Okay, I confess this is a total cheat shot. I photographed these frisky little guys when I presented Around the World in 90 Minutes at the Oglebay Good Zoo in Wheeling, West Virginia. Someday, I’m confident, I’ll photograph meerkats in the wild.
Marty’s photo of the day #4737: People tend to dislike vultures, but they are incredibly useful birds. Take this black vulture that I photographed in southern Florida. Who’s to say that she didn’t eat something incredibly rotten and disgusting before flying over Mar-a-Lago and letting it rip!
Day #8 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. Yeah, the math doesn’t make sense, but I feel it’s pushing it to call Time Is Irreverent: Ooh, It’s a Trilogy! my “eighth book.” Instead, it’s the entire hilarious three-volume Time Is Irreverent trilogy in one convenient, specially priced Kindle […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4735: This photo shows Nellie keeping me company last fall on Vancouver Island. When Nellie joined our family, she was a skinny rescue dog, weighing just 42 pounds. She also had what appeared to be a burn on one of her legs. Yesterday, I wrote about Annie, a rescue dog, […]
Day #7 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with my latest novel, Doctor Refurb. “This hilarious SF novel pits a doctor and a time-traveling alien against eco catastrophe.”—BookLife by Publisher’s Weekly (editor’s pick) “This time-travel comedy is completely audacious, utterly bonkers, political AF (don’t expect it […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4734: Yesterday, I read a story about Republican Governor Kristi Noem shooting Cricket, her 14-month-old wirehaired pointer, claiming she was “less than worthless” as a hunting dog. It reminds me of another almost certain Republican, Cody Roberts, who made national news a few weeks ago for chasing down a wolf […]
Day #6 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with my return to nonfiction writing: Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer. Like so many other authors and musicians, this is my “What I did while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic project.” […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4733: Macro photography, somewhere north of the Arctic Circle, in the Yukon Territory.
Day #5 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with Time Is Irreverent 3: Gone for 16 Seconds. Part of this novel was inspired by an amazing class I took on the Middle East during my senior year in high school. I wrote this novel in 2019, […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4732: Four years ago, this week, Donald Trump was busy fucking up the United States’ response to COVID-19, killing hundreds of thousands of people. All my in-person college speaking gigs were cancelled accept one: Eastern Arizona College. After the college assured me that everyone in the audience would be masked, […]
Day #4 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with Time Is Irreverent 2: Jesus Christ, Not Again! This is the second novel in what would become the Time Is Irreverent Trilogy. Unfortunately, the advertising departments at Amazon and Facebook refused to allow me to use this […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4731: I shot this photo of Bill Clinton back in 2008, and it reminds me of how hypocritical Republicans and a little over half of the Christians in the United States are. In 1998, those people were salivating to impeach Clinton for an affair he had with a consenting adult. […]
Day #3 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. After writing two nonfiction books, I switched to fiction. Time Is Irreverent is both hilarious and irreverent, and it introduced me to the concept of “review bombing.” Despite open-minded people loving the novel, conservative Christians (many who never even read […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4730: I don’t know if I’ll be successful for the entire week, but I have been going through the photo files on my computer, trying to find pictures to post that fit the theme of the first of many criminal trials of the Great-Christian-White-Nationalist-Ordained-By-God-Persecuted-Like-Jesus Donald Fucking Trump. I shot this […]
